march coding challenge. isometric game. mine is going to be an uber simulator, where you have to drive around a city taking people here and there, at first the city is single story buildings so you can see your car, but as you successfully transport people to their jobs, the prospering economy allows for construction of taller and taller skyscrapers. the challenge of the game, it's that I don't bother with any sort of occlusion code, so your car starts to get harder and harder to see behind all of the tall buildings... you have to memorizes all of the streets, which will be randomly generated each time you play the game. there will also be pedestrians, for which you will accept a nice scoring penalty if you run them over, even though you won't even be able to see them behind all of the skyscrapers.

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
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Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 11:11 am Post subject:

Sirocco wrote:

(paraphrased) doing 2D isometric rendering is bullshit

And that's what I'm getting. From a technical perspective it's just not worth it. Being able to rotate in-between 90 degrees is a really nice benefit of doing it in 3D. It's practically free. Character sprites are simple billboards, and you change-out the artwork depending on the orientation.

I've put hundreds of hours in to the various Disgaea (and spinoff) games. I do not miss non-polygonal isometric at all. There are so many neat things you can do instead of fighting with Z order bullshit. Let the Z buffer do it.

We did a semi-isometric 2D platformer on GameBoy Advance some years ago (Secret Agent Barbie). The angle was a skewed rectangle.

We had the luxury of 2-3 layers we could dedicate to dealing with tiling, and you should be able to see how ugly things look in that 2nd screenshot. We wasted so much of our tile budget just making things work right. Fortunately it was the GameBoy Advance, so we had way more time memory than the Super Nintendo and GameBoy (where you have only 1 layer), but still. It was not pleasant for our artists. They could make it look okay, but not great.

It's just not good. You can make good looking isometric game mockups, but implementation is frustrating. It's not natural. Flat 2D is so much better.

So yeah, from my developers perspective, 2D isometric can go die in a fire. ;)_________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

Hey, please don't blanket statement at me with "It's just not good" and "That's not really a useful way to look at it." How rude! :[

I know what you're getting at. I knew that from your original post (the one even before I said anything).

This discussion is just going in circles and that is upsetting me for some reason I cannot put my finger on. I feel like I am just repeating myself, and seeing repeated posts -- but the content on each side is orthogonal to the other.

I like the visual style. You don't like the technical/programming aspect. There's one sentence for what became like 6 posts. What's more, I actually agree with everyone that the programming part is a huge PITA.

Please don't take this the wrong way. Everyone here is good people. Forgive me, I'm just cranky today, I think. :]_________________loomsoft :]

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
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Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2017 6:44 pm Post subject:

sonrisu wrote:

Please don't take this the wrong way. Everyone here is good people. Forgive me, I'm just cranky today, I think. :]

Oh, hahaha! I'm totally not offended. I'm smiling the whole time as I type this and that. :D. Words don't seem to convey that while I'm saying it sucks, I'm wearing a stupid playful grin. This is not a serious issue. This is sitting around the table stupid banter. It's honest, but it's of zero consequence. ;)_________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

I don't have anything to add. I think you can carefully capture the exact feel of pixeled isometric 2D in 3D if you take great care. People don't, though._________________NoOP / Reyn Time -- The $ is screwing everyone these days. (0xDB)

I would love to see some actual examples, if anyone knows of any? :]_________________loomsoft :]

SiroccoModeratorJoined: 19 Aug 2005
Posts: 9470
Location: Not Finland

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 7:16 pm Post subject:

I don't think anyone has tried to do a low-res isometric game in 3D? I'm sure *someone* has in the indie space, but I don't keep up with that anymore._________________NoOP / Reyn Time -- The $ is screwing everyone these days. (0xDB)

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
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Location: Canadia

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 12:36 am Post subject:

It's a lot of this sort of thing

_________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

That's just the shot I found. I found another with depth-of-field blur, but I didn't trust the domain it was hosted on (opted for what I could find on Twitter, since that has always worked fine for me)._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

That game must take place in Russia considering how people are driving O_o.

I just saw that Steam is killing Greenlight and replacing it with Direct. Seems to be some 'pay a fee and hope to god the game get's popular or it's pulled'.
I Dunno, there are good stuff in greenlight (at this point I'm sure at least 40% of my steam games originates from greenlight) but it's a helluva hard to find it with all the 'this is my first time programming' stuff.

The plus side is that all the developers of the halfassed survival games should get a harder time._________________My Blog | I take steroids for my bad knee. Now I can kick a smart car across the Walmart parking lot![/size]

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 12:00 am Post subject:

I'm not sure about the "get pulled part". From what I understood, the idea is you pay a fee that's essentially a deposit, just to prove you're serious about the product you're publishing. It just wasn't worded well. You don't get pulled, you just don't get your money back until you break some threshold. And fact is, they don't actually know what they're going to do. The whole point of bringing it up was just to gauge community reaction.

The ultimate goal being anyone can Publish to Steam whenever they want (much like on Apple platforms). No need to wait through the greenlight process.

Indies complain about Greenlight, but IMO it's actually been a good thing. It has meant indies had to, at a minimum, prove their product was worthwhile by getting some attention. For a while it seemed just being on Steam was enough for a game to succeed, but that very quickly changed. Once you're an established developer though, it does become a bit of a pain. It's a flawed system if you actually do know what you're doing._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

Even with all the gatekeeping Apple does, there is still so much garbage on the App Store. Malicious, useless, predatory type apps. Yuck.

Steam will probably get there too. Honestly, it's seemingly partway there already, as any time I browse around for games there is a lot of questionable stuff up there.

This is my main problem with stores like this: there's so much junk on there that I am completely turned off from using it at all. Searching for something "good" is such a hassle because I have to wade through piles of crap.

I'm not sure there's any solution here. I just wish the mindset wasn't a race to the bottom to make a quick buck. Would love some section like "care taken in production values". :]_________________loomsoft :]

Read something about that you would get pulled depending on ratings that was what I based it on._________________My Blog | I take steroids for my bad knee. Now I can kick a smart car across the Walmart parking lot![/size]

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2017 12:31 am Post subject:

After taking a year off, I'm back in San Francisco next week for the Game Developers Conference.

I'm also *sort of* hosting a party. Rather, GitHub is hosting, and they gave us a corner and a bunch of PCs to showcase our stuff.

As for being able to get up to SF, unfortunately I can't. No fatalities next week folks. Sorry. :]_________________loomsoft :]

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:28 pm Post subject:

Party aside, I'm surprised you don't bother making the trip up to attend GDC (some years Apple even had events next door). It's an hour drive away, and as far as I know you like game making. ;) So many of us fly thousands of miles just to go._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

SiroccoModeratorJoined: 19 Aug 2005
Posts: 9470
Location: Not Finland

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2017 1:23 pm Post subject:

I think I would have enjoyed attending GDC around the late 2000's, but all desire to immerse myself in game development is long gone.

And now that I have plenty of time and money to make the trip.... I don't want to :P WTF, life.

Edit: I should do it at least once. And I don't even have to leave the country to do it. Heh._________________NoOP / Reyn Time -- The $ is screwing everyone these days. (0xDB)

Also, it's weird. I love games. I love making games. But I have no interest in the industry/business side of things. For me, both playing and making is just a hobby. I don't like to take it so seriously. :]_________________loomsoft :]

I would like to think that somehow, someday, I'll make a game again. A real game, something polished, not the super small stuff that I made so far. Something more ambitious. Still waiting for the "make game" button._________________0xDB

I was especially busy this year helping out with a Ludum Dare documentary. I didn't get a chance to see any talks (at least no official GDC ones, I did a Khronos event one evening with talks). But I got to chat with a lot of people, plus meet and catch up with a lot of people I only knew online. Friend of mine Geoff, guy who actually started Ludum Dare, met him for the first time this year (after 15 years). Most of my GDCs are chill, about seeing talks and hanging out with people. But admittedly, I did have a number of important biz meetings with folks while I was there.

The week ended way too fast, but at least I got to come home and grab a Nintendo Switch. :)

PS: Blaster Master Zero actually looks pretty fun. Will probably play that myself (as I wait for people to get over Zelda, and start selling used copies)._________________Mike Kasprzak
'eh whatever. I used to make AAA and Indie games | Ludum Dare | Blog | Tweetar

PoVModeratorJoined: 21 Aug 2005
Posts: 10971
Location: Canadia

Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:35 am Post subject:

Ha!

Anyone remember the demoscene musician Moby? Not the famous Moby, but the other Moby.

Well by complete accident I discovered that he's been making game music forever, and changed his handle to "elmobo" a long time ago. Also hey, he did music for a couple Ludum Dare games.